Gay Underwear Brand Tries to Be Sassy, Forced to Apologize Later

A moment of frustration can turn into a whole lot more.

UK-based clothing and spirits brand Molly and Tommy has been forced to issue an apology and vowed to change course after a recent social media dust-up. The brand, which gets its name from 18th century England ("Molly" used to be slang for gays and "Tommy" was slang for lesbians), is designed by Darren Edwards, who also operates the company's Twitter account. On Sunday, Edwards sent a tweet from the account that has since caused a maelstrom.

In response to a promo image featuring six muscled models, one commenter wrote, "So the brand is for one body type?"

The brand account, then operated by Edwards, responded shortly after: "Yes so keep scrolling." (The post is now deleted.)

Within an hour, responses began to roll in. When people criticized the response, the account wrote, "That is the response to someone not following us or knowing what we have posted over 3 years and commenting on one pic."

In another, they called the response "suitable" for anyone calling them out.

"I am a brand ran by a person so if you want to make a sweeping statement without researching first, I will reply exactly the same way," they wrote in another post. But the comments kept coming, with more people criticizing the post.

"The images are marketing images and how has underwear only been for one body type," they wrote. "Look at the 8k plus people I have retweeted most are large to XXL."

A cursory look at the label's feed shows that on Twitter, they have responded to and retweeted a diversity of body types. And while their promotional imagery does skew more specific, it also contains with it some diversity. When one follower said they were disappointed to see how the brand felt about bigger bodies given the new response, the brand replied again.

"Honestly it's not, I was just frustrated about another comment that my brand is only for one body type." they wrote. "If I thought that I would only retweet the skinny boy pics. It was a silly reply to what I thought was a silly comment." But the damage had already been done, and Tweets from Edwards' personal Twitter account seemingly enjoying the controversy (at one point tweeting, "oops started a Twitter war today" with a smiling emoji) and from weeks prior surfaced.

"When you run your own clothing business and actually understand marketing, then you can comment," the brand said. "'Standard physique' does not sell product, tried and tested it so many times. Blame the consumer as when I post a hot guy people buy, it's that simple."

But after a few hours of Twitter discourse, the brand was ready to give it another go.

"I made a too rapid, poorly judged reply to a comment about body type," they wrote to the brand account. "We are an underwear brand with sizes from S to 2XL. I am sorry if you feel excluded from these images."

"These shoots were about inclusivity of race, and the first one included some type of body variation, but I agree with your comments that I should have also been more inclusive with body type," the continued. "I am one of the few brands that retweets everyone in our products, most brands do not do that and we do it to show body and all other types of inclusivity. You can see that for yourself. We try to do our best because we are committed to inclusivity."

Three hours later, they followed up.

"What I have learnt the last days is people want to see all body types," they wrote. "If you are comfortable posing full body in underwear and live in or around London and would like to pose for a shoot in April drop a comment saying so."

What a full circle moment.